"Severance" is not the first bit of Butler's writing I've enjoyed; there was his collection of shorts that won the Pulitzer for fiction, "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," first person narratives about Vietnamese Americans living in Louisiana after the war, and "From Where you Dream," which is basically his lectures translated to text. His fiction book contains a lot of concepts I generally agree with, but to get through it you have to accept his voice is somewhat arrogant and arduous throughout. He's got a lot more out there, but I've mainly known him as a short story writer.

Severance is a thematic collection of shorts which employ the following theme: "After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes; In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute."

Thus, each story is exactly 240 words long with no hard punctuation or clear beginning or end, to capture the free flow of thoughts inside a head that has been severed from its body, the final moments of consciousness.

I would call it life flashing before their eyes but it's a little bit more complicated than that.

Each story has no indent (since the whole of the text is in essence a "final thought") and is separated by a page of blackness introducing the character, time period and reason for being beheaded.

Among the characters are Medusa, a chicken and Robert Olen Butler himself, along with actual historic persons.

To me, Butler is either the type of writing you love or you hate. It's a bit more poetic and ambient than some may prefer, and thus can be hard labored breathing in to the subconscious, but it certainly stands on its own as a memorable work of fiction.

My only gripe is that the damned thing costs like $18 just because of the flamboyant printing format. I only read about 60 pages out of like 200 pages in the damned book.

Still, I'll give it my approval. But next time, Butler, try to eat some of that cost if you're going to print half your book in black .

Sounds quite interesting, definitely something I've never heard of. I'll have to check it out when I go to the bookstore this week for my annual books supply. Well, I already had that before vacation, but I read all the books I bought! Gosh, I was hoping AP Lit was going to be more of a challenge this year. Only two books and one combined essay during the summer! If it had been the previous teacher, it would have been five books with five seperate essays! At least that would keep me busy! And the reading was easy, too! The Great Gatsby and Things Fall Apart! Good books, nonetheless, but easy to grasp.